The intent of the Brainstorm activity is to approach your interests from both a constrained and unconstrained perspective. That is, for your own topic, you know so many things and likely care deeply about the subject that it becomes very difficult to see the tree for the leaves. This is a constrained perspective. Giving your attention to someone else’s subject, offering your unconstrained perspective, allows for your imagination to flow free of the many important details and the worry of having to actually implement the project.

Let’s see how well it works.

In my experience, this kind of mental exercise is especially valuable in creating a flexibility of mind and a openness of sprit necessary to do the digital humanities today. DH moves so quickly that one also has the worry that she doesn’t know about the latest digital resource or that someone will find out that he can’t really code. On one hand, impostor syndrome runs rampant, putting anxiety between you and your goal. On the other hand, the genuine pace of change makes it difficult to employ best practices when those practices change faster than they can be implemented. In the context of continual creation of new tools, unconstrained imagination is the strongest force bond these new realities. Be thee not afraid!